Three former assistant department managers are suing Publix, alleging the Florida grocer did not pay them for work done off the clock, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Tampa on Thursday.

The collective of former Publix employees have worked at stores in Tennessee, Georgia and in Florida’s Spring Hill.

They said in the lawsuit that Publix did not pay them for work done at stores before or after their shift, during unpaid lunch breaks and work done outside of the store.

The employees said they worked about five hours that went unpaid each week, the lawsuit said.

Publix did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday afternoon.

Employers that don’t pay workers overtime for more than 40 hours of work a week are in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, a federal law protecting a worker’s right to a minimum wage and “time-and-a-half” overtime. Publix, with headquarters in Lakeland, is the largest grocery chain in Florida and has stores across Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and soon Kentucky.

The lawsuit said that Publix “required” employees to work outside of their shifts and did not pay them to reduce labor costs “for its own convenience.”

Before and after they clocked into their shifts, the assistant department managers said they would walk the department with supervisors, assist customers and clean, organize and stock shelves. When they would clock out for meal breaks, the lawsuit said they were “routinely interrupted” to handle business matters and were not later compensated for that time.

Even when they were not at the Publix store, the assistant department managers said in the lawsuit that they had to work by communicating with coworkers and supervisors over matters such as scheduling, staffing, operations and managing goods and supplies.

Publix did not establish a system to count work done outside of its stores, the lawsuit claims.

The plaintiffs Christoper Roberts worked at Publix stores in Cleveland, Tn. and Chattanooga, Tn. between 2019 and 2021; Caitlin Throckmorton worked in several stores in the Atlanta-area between March 2022 to May 2023; and Weeki Wachee resident Brandy Moore worked at a Spring Hill store between 2018 and 2021.

They said that Publix’s “unlawful conduct has been widespread, repeated, and consistent.”

The lawsuit is a collective action, meaning that any assistant department manager who has faced those conditions at any of Publix’s 1,300 locations in the past three years can join the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs are being represented by Morgan & Morgan and Shavitz Law Group.

“We believe that the assistant department managers’ allegations only scratch the surface of Publix off-the-clock conditions. We will work to uncover all the evidence about the extent of these alleged harmful practices in order to hold Publix accountable and recover every possible dollar of these workers’ rightfully earned money,” Shavitz Law Group attorney Gregg Shavitz said in a statement.

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